I regret it when I suppress my feelings too long and they burst forth in ways that are distorted or attacking or hurtful.
You can’t possibly be afraid of death, really, you can only be afraid of life.
We live by a perceptual “map” which is never reality itself.
The conviction grows in me that we shall discover laws of personality and behavior which are as significant for human progress or human understanding as the law of gravity or the laws of thermodynamics.
I find it very satisfying when I can be real, when I can be close to whatever it is that is going on within me. I like it when I can listen to myself. To really know what I am experiencing in the moment is by no means an easy thing, but I feel somewhat encouraged because I think that over the years I have been improving at it.
When I am thus able to be in process, it is clear that there can be no closed system of beliefs, no unchanging set of principles which I hold. Life is guided by a changing understanding of and interpretation of my experience. It is always in process of becoming.
When you are in psychological distress and someone really hears you without passing judgement on you, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels damn good!
It is so obvious when a person is not hiding behind a facade but is speaking from deep within himself.
I have come to feel that the only learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered, self-appropriated learning.
Perhaps partly because of the troubling business of being struggled over, I have come to value highly the privilege of getting away, of being alone. It has seemed to me that my most fruitful periods of work are the times when I have been able to get completely away from what others think, from professional expectations and daily demands, and gain perspective on what I am doing.
I like to think of myself as a quiet revolutionary.
Change threatens, and its possibility creates frightened, angry people. They are found in their purest essence on the extreme right, but in all of us there is some fear of process, of change.
I believe that individuals nowadays are probably more aware of their inner loneliness than has ever been true before in history.
To be what one is, is to enter fully into being a process.
I found myself doing this same thing – playing a role of having greater certainty and greater competence than I really possess. I can’t tell you how disgusted with myself I felt as I realized what I was doing: I was not being me, I was playing a part.
The strongest force in our universe is not overriding power, but love.
To recognize that “I am the one who chooses” and “I am the one who determines the value of an experience for me” is both an invigoraring and a frightening realization.
The mainspring of creativity appears to be the same tendency which we discover so deeply as the curative force in psychotherapy – man’s tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities.
Time and again in my clients, I have seen simple people become significant and creative in their own spheres, as they have developed more trust of the processes going on within themselves, and have dared to feel their own feelings, live by values which they discover within, and express themselves in their own unique ways.
It seems to me that anything that can be taught to another is relatively inconsequential, and has little or no significant influence on behavior.